The Santas arrived by foot, by BART, by taxi, and even by doubledecker tour bus...
...as they congregated in San Francisco's Civic Center around noon on Saturday.
The central plaza had been fenced off to protect huge party tents used for a wealthy person's event the previous evening...
...so the soon-to-be-drunken Santas took over Polk Street in front of City Hall instead...
...effectively blocking traffic on the four-lane street.
There was also some snow left over from a consular party at City Hall earlier in the week which provided the ammunition for a few good snowball fights.
The annual event has grown larger each year, and since it's decentralized and nobody seems to actually be in charge, the San Francisco Police Department can't play their usual extortion game of charging tens of thousands of dollars for overtime Event Security as they do with most parades and street fairs.
The thousands of Santas seemed to be mostly heterosexual young adults engaging in day-long pub crawls throughout various neighborhoods in San Francisco...
...while flirting up a storm...
...and presumably getting laid at the end of it all with chestnuts roasting on an open fire.
Hi Mike --
ReplyDeleteMy roommate & I were on polk street late in the afternoon on santa saturday. polk street has changed; the cinch and possibly the encore on california) are the only gay bars left. now it's all straight bars.
as far i could tell, all the hundreds of santas and santa-groups we navigated thru that late afternoon were straight, but mainly to me, they were YOUNG -- that caused me to smile as we walked along polk.it was another generation – make that two generations – later now living in san Francisco. no wonder I see more & more young families w/children on polk street.
before my roommate and i turned off polk to go to our destination, a pleasantly drunk young woman yelled ,out to us, 'Merry Christmas!' 'Merry Christmas!’ I yelled back.
enjoyed your photo essays from palm springs, too.
Dear chrisinsf: Thanks for the kind words, and you're absolutely correct about how young most of the Santas were yesterday. It was a cheering event, and I hope it doesn't get too big and out of control so that San Francisco authorities shut it down.
ReplyDeleteI deleted my previous comment because I made a couple of stupid typos. They were wandering all over my neighborhood as well and the bars up and down Market St. were packed. Still, it seemed a happy, mellow energy and it was fun to see so many Santas, in all ages, genders, sizes and colors.
ReplyDeletewaiting for the inevitable zombie-Santa event. But maybe that's more a Midwestern thing.
ReplyDeleteDear momo: San Francisco usually has a zombie-Santa event too but it's not quite such a big deal as this SantaCon. Plus, people are not as cute in their zombie makeup as they are without it, so that's to be considered too.
ReplyDelete